MaxMetal Custom Motorcycles

I liked Sturgis!! It really is the granddaddy of all motorcycle rallies but it had a small town friendly feel to it.  For $4.00 - we  were able to park our bike in a shaded driveway; the homeowners were there to watch the bikes and they even offered free water and lemonade.  (This is in contrast to Myrtle Beach, where we got the feeling that local residents would enjoy running over a motorcycle.)  The town has only 6,700 people in it.  During the rally, the downtown area is taken over by rally vendors.  The traffic is very controlled but not congested, each corner is a 4 way stop.  And as soon as you leave the down town area you are on the open road again, Interstate 90, going 70 mph, heading toward one of the many area attactions, i.e. Mt. Rushmore, Devil’s Tower, the South Dakota Badlands, the Needles.  There are so many things to see in the area.  We only had a few hours to take in the main rally and no time to do sight seeing.  We will be back another time. 

Across the nation, the highways and the railroads run parallel courses.  I have always enjoyed watching trains.  As a child I counted rail cars as they passed the crossing and waved at engineers and the guy in the caboose.  (What is the guy in the caboose called?)  I miss the cabooses.  Trains and train tracks were a constant feature of the roadside throughout the trip.    

Burlington Northern train along Nebraska Highway 2.

Narrow gage railroad bridge in Montana.

Here is a website that has a lot more train pictures for people who are really into trains.   
  http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/index.html 

The railroad has a large part in the history of our country and in the history of my family.  My mother owns 160 acres that my great-great grandfather bought from the Union Pacific.  The US government deeded a large swath of land to the UP on either side of the tracks they were building.  This land was sold to settlers coming to the plains. 

We raced a storm across the prairie all afternoon.  Hour after hour, we watched the  clouds. The rain caught us just outside of Rapid City, SD. 

We pulled off the road when GT could no longer see the truck in front of us.  The downpour was brief and soon we were riding again, with a rainbow at our side.

In Alliance we turned north on highway 87 and followed the sign to Carhenge.  This site is billed as a “Car Art Reserve” and is actually listed in the Rand-McNally Road Atlas.  It is a replica of Stonehenge made with automobiles. http://www.carhenge.com/

Our son’s comment was “It’s just wrong to do that to a Willys.”  This was an amusing and interesting stop.  You have to wonder if someone just had too much time on their hands.   http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/OVERhenges.html   is a link to “Roadside America - Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions.  — In case you want somewhere different to go.

Probably my favorite spot on Earth, ever since childhood, is the Sandhills of Nebraska.  I love the openness - so free and forever feeling.  We rode the length of the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway from Grand Island to Alliance.  http://www.sandhillsjourney.com/  It was definitely not congested!  At one point, GT set the bike on the centerline and we rode for mile after mile. Only the sun, the clouds, the grass, and the wildflowers beside the road watched us go by.  Plus a few cows and an occasional train.  The cars were few and far between.

 We rode through remote little towns like Hazard (pop. 66), Merna (pop. 391), Anselmo (pop. 189), and Halsey (pop. 110) which is base for the Nebraska National Forest.  (Side note here - the Nebraska National Forest was hand-planted in the prairie.  Forests don’t happen there naturally.) 
The hills are grass covered sand dunes that once were the home of the American Bison. Now it is cattle country. While the roadway is bordered by barbed wire fences it is considered open range.  Cows have the right-of-way.

Nebraska!  I always feel like I can breathe deeply again when I get to the wide open prairie.  I grew up near a little town along Highway 2 in the middle of Nebraska and that stretch of road feels like home to me still.    We came into the state at Nebraska City and followed Highway 2 through Lincoln, where it joins I-80, on to Grand Island, where it takes on its own identy again. The stretch between Grand Island and Alliance is called the Sandhills Journey Scenic Byway.  http://www.sandhillsjourney.com/  A great ride that I will write more about tomorrow.  Below is a picture of my hometown as we rode in at sunset after our second day on the road.

We started day 2 about 100 miles south of St. Louis.  By this time we were seeing motorcycles everywhere.  There were bikes being ridden, towed in trailers, strapped in the back of pick-ups, all variations - streaming toward Sturgis like pilgrims flocking to their Mecca.  

At a gas station outside Nebraska City we met a motorcyclist from St. Louis.  St. Louis is approximately 400 miles from Nebraska City and he talked like he and his group had had a good ride so far.  They were hoping to get on to Ogalala, NE before stopping for the night but said the girls with them were complaining about sore butts.   GT asked what he was riding and he replied “Over there” with a wave of his arm toward the diesel pumps.  “Over there” was a huge motor home.  Their bikes were secure inside a large trailer behind it.  We wished them a good trip,  got on our bike, and rode another 150 miles to our destination west of Grand Island.

On our first two days out, we needed to cover over 1200 miles. I really prefer to travel the backcountry two lane roads but for fast efficient travel you can’t beat the Interstate system.  (Check out this site for all you could ever want to know about the interstate highway system which celebrated 50 years in 2006) http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/interstate/homepage.cfm   
The temperature was above 100 degrees for a good part of those two days. I’m originally from Nebraska and GT is from Georgia so we’ve traveled from NE to GA many, many times.  For a little different route than we usually take, we stayed south of St. Louis and went up the west side of the Mississippi on I-55. That was a pleasant Sunday morning ride.  When we got to I-70, we found a different pace. Everyone was in much more of a hurry than we were and they didn’t mind letting us know about it.
 Contrast this I-70

  with this  US 63 to US 36
In Columbia, we turned North on 63, and this is the wide open road we found. We took 63 north and then turned west on 36. Wide open 4 lane road all the way to St. Joseph, MO.  We were able to sit back and just ride!  I’ll take the road less traveled. 

I love to see flags flying.  I get teary when I hear “The Star Spangled Banner”.  This is a great country we live in.  GT and I were blessed to see some of its beauty and meet some of its fine citizens as we traveled from Georgia to Idaho. 

Some interesting flag notes we observed as we traveled:  the State of Missouri flies the POW/MIA flag along with the US and Missouri flags and the State of Illinois lowers flags to half-mast when an Illinois soldier is killed in action.  I appreciate that they are recognizing the sacrifices that keep our country free.